The present invention relates to optical scanners and more specifically to an optical scanner having enhanced item side coverage.
Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,229,588, 5,684,289, and 5,886,336 disclose a dual aperture optical scanner. The scanning light beams from a laser diode pass through substantially horizontal and vertical apertures to provide more item coverage than a single aperture scanner. These patents are hereby incorporated by reference.
Known multi-aperture optical scanners produce scan patterns with gaps in item coverage. These gaps increase as the item is moved away from an ideal position in the center of the scan volume.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide an optical scanner which is not only capable of reading a bar code label on any one of six orthogonal surfaces of an item oriented at right angles to the scanner, but is also capable of reading the bar code label if it is located on any intermediate surfaces between those orthogonal surfaces. Thus, it would be desirable to provide an optical scanner with true omnidirectional item coverage.